Baltimore Tunnel No. 2 Mine - Wilkes Barre, PA

PHMC to unveil marker on 1919 Baltimore Tunnel Mine ExplosionPublished: January 19, 2014CitizensVoice.com by William Kashatus

At 6:45 a.m. on Thursday morning, June 5, 1919, Jacob Milz, an elderly tracklayer employed by the Delaware & Hudson Coal Company, arrived for work at the Baltimore Tunnel No. 2 Mine in Wilkes-Barre's East End. It was a modern operation, equipped with electricity and a motor engine that transported the miners below ground via a train of cars connected to a trolley wire.Milz was one of 150 men who descended into the mine in 14 coal cars that spring morning. Riding in the first car immediately behind the engine, he noted that "all the men were in good spirits, as they talked, laughed and joked with each other."Shortly after, John McGroarty, the motorman, began driving the engine into the mine, he was informed that the trolley wire, which conducted electricity for the engine, had fallen from its bracket and needed repair. To avoid certain disaster, McGroartyand his brakeman, James Kehoe, uncoupled the engine from the 14 cars forcing the train to a halt just 200 feet away from the mine entrance. Now the men would have to complete their journey on foot.As they began to climb out of the coal cars, a smoky haze descended upon the miners. The only sound to be heard was the sizzling of the trolley wire as sparks flickered toward the rear car carrying 12 canisters of dynamite.Suddenly there was an explosion. McGroarty and Kehoe, who were about to turn off the electricity so they could repair the fallen bracket, saw a sheet of flame flash behind them followed by an ear-piercing blast. In that instant, every man and boy on the train was either dead - having been burned to a crisp by the explosion - or dying a slow, excruciatingly painful death by suffocation and severe burning.Somehow Milz escaped injury by jumping out of the first car and crawling into the G vein, a clear area with good air circulation. After clearing his throat and lungs of coal dust, he joined others in an effort to rescue those who were still alive.Although the fire did not last long it resulted in 92 deaths and 44 injuries, making the Baltimore Tunnel explosion one of the worst disasters in Pennsylvania's industrial history.This Wednesday the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission will unveil a blue and gold historical marker dedicated to the Baltimore Tunnel Mine Disaster as part of this year's "Mining History Week." The ceremony will be held on Spring Street behind Home Depot in Wilkes-Barre.There will also be a panel discussion on the disaster at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Fitz Room, Sheehey-Farmer Campus Center at King's College. Members of the panel will include professors Thomas Mackaman and Dan Clasby; Katie Lavery, who lost two uncles in the explosion, and King's students who worked with Lavery and the two professors to secure the PHMC marker.The origins of the Baltimore Tunnel disaster can be traced to August 1918 when the United Mine Workers union won the right for workers to be transported into the coal mines. Prior to that time, miners were forced to walk miles underground before arriving at their place of work. Constantly exposed to the dangers of toxic gasses, cave-ins, and rock slides, they filed a grievance to end the treacherous practice.The Delaware & Hudson responded to the complaint by providing one trip of cars for the miners each morning with the stipulation that the black blasting power used in the mines was to be transported in the last unoccupied car.The use of electricity to transport miners to their workplace on the same train of cars as the blasting powder was not only a violation of the Department of the Mines' safety regulations, but an inevitable recipe for disaster. Naturally, the miners riding the cars were acutely aware of the danger presented by the black powder, but they were powerless to do anything about it.Although the exact cause of the explosion was never determined, a subsequent investigation conducted by national mine experts and local mine inspectors identified three possibilities: (1) the ignition of the black powder by a short-circuited wire; (2) a miner's crowbar making contact with an overhead wire and (3) that a draft of 186,000 cubic feet of air per minute in the tunnel pulled in the flames from the black powder causing the explosion.The horrific scene that followed became seared into the memories of those who observed it. Miner Thomas Dougherty, one of the fortunate survivors, was thrown out of a car by the blast and saved himself by jumping into a ditch."Bodies were all about," he recalled. "Some I know were dead, others were dying. The flames were terrific. They were all about. We were in a veritable hell. No man could possibly hope to escape with his life unless he got into the water, buried his face and rolled over and over as I did."Brakeman Jim Kehoe related an even more gruesome experience. Working his way to the area closest to the dynamite car, he found men "being roasted alive" as they "shrieked for help." When he tried to pull one of the victims to safety, Kehoe ended up with "a hand full of skin and clothes" which he'd inadvertently "torn from the man's body."Rescue crews instantly rushed to the scene in the hope of saving those who were still alive, while firefighters worked frantically to put out the flames. Many of the bodies were burned to a crisp. Others who were burned and tried to reach safety died of suffocation due to the sulfur fumes that filled the tunnel.In a sad twist of fate, some of the victims had recently returned from World War I only to die in the anthracite pits of their hometown. Other victims were the fathers of soldiers from the 311th Field Artillery, which had been welcomed home just 12 hours earlier.After the rescue effort was disbanded and the hospitals, filled to overflowing, the gruesome work of preparing the dead for burial began. Most of the victims were Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak and Russian and were burned beyond recognition. There must have been few, if any, viewings.Perhaps the most poignant scene came on June 8 at a common funeral Mass at St. Mary's Polish Catholic Church on Parkland Avenue, where rows of caskets filled the aisles. The dead were later buried in a common grave at the parish cemetery in the Georgetown section of Wilkes-Barre Township.If there was a silver lining, it came in the form of workmen's compensation paid to the widows and children of the deceased miners and some additional financial relief from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And still the survivors were left to wonder: "What price the life of a coal miner?"William Kashatus teaches history at Luzerne County Community College

Mass grave of miners, St. Marys Maternity Cemetery

After a whole day of searching for a monument of sorts at the cemetery, I gave up on finding the location of the mass grave.The next day I returned and met one of the caretakers. He was kind enough to take me right to the location of the miners mass grave! In this area, there are no markers or headstones. There's nothing to mark who is buried here.In this area there are hundreds of Spanish Flu victims as well as the miners (same time period). In addition this is where members of the parish (priests and nuns) are buried. There is no marker. This makes me very sad. I'm going to see what we can do to put up some sort of a marker to honor those who died in this terrible disaster.

The above photo was taken in 1919 at the mass burial at St. Mary's Cemetery in Hanover Township, just south of Wilkes Barre. I visited the cemetery in April 2012, and found the area where these men were buried, in unmarked, mass graves. The area sits open, just inside the cemetery to the left of the entrance. Along with the coal miners, hundreds of Spanish Flu victims are buried in the same area.

June 5, 1919 Baltimore Tunnel No. 2 Disaster

EARLY MORNING EXPLOSION IN WILKES BARRE COAL MINE CAUSES HEAVY LOSS OF LIFE

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. June 5--More then ninety men were killed and sixty injured today in an explosion in the Baltimore tunnel of the Delaware and Hudson Coal Company near here. Reports from the mine are to the effect that already ninety-nine charred bodies had been taken from the tunnel and officials are of the opinion that at least thirty other men are still imprisoned in the mine. The accident happened at 6:40 AM this morning just as the shifts were being changed and two hundred men were on their way in the mines at the time of the explosion which was caused by an electric wire falling in a car of black powder. Had the car contained dynamite the force of the explosion would have wrecked the entire eastern section of the city.Many of the injured who were rushed to the Mercy and City hospitals have died and thousands of frantic women and children rush from one hospital to another looking for some trace of their loved ones, whom they believe were victims of the catastrophe. Today’s accident is one of the worst in the history of the anthracite region and is only exceeded by the famous Avondale explosion in which 108 lives were lost.

At seven o’clock this morning thousands of residents of the mining settlement about Wilkesbarre had gathered at the mouth of the mines and hundreds of women fainted as their husbands or father were brought from the tunnel a corpse and laid on the hillside. In a few minutes the hillside was covered with the dead bodies and had the appearance of a battlefield. Hurried calls to the surrounding cities for aid were responded to and hundreds of physicians and ambulances were rushed to the mine by neighboring mines. Among the dead already recognized were "Chuck" Conners, a returned war hero and John McCloskey, a former star base ball pitcher in the New York state league. The foreman of the mines was on the fourth car entering the mine at the time of the explosion and escaped injury.The death list is rapidly growing. As the bodies are removed from the mine, living and dead, they are piled on the green about the colliery. Many of the injured lived but a short time. Hundreds of women, men and children gathered about the tunnel. Shrieking and crying, they lifted the blankets from the men, They were terrified at the sight. Women fainted; men lost their nerve, and children ran away in fright.The bodies of scores have been removed to the morgues. There the work of identification is being carried out with little success. Brave men and women are seeking to aid the relatives, to give them news, but the scene is pitiful.It has been established that the explosion was caused by a break in the trolley wire. This wire gained contact with the powder and sparks did the rest. The dead list was made largely by the flames and the sulfur fumes which filled the tunnel. The fire did not last long, but it was long enough to make a heavy death toll.

Cries of Wounded and Dying Could Be Heard OutsideRescuers got into the mine with a hose and played streams of water on the flames. While they were doing this, the cries of the dying and the injured were heard above the roar of the flames. Today’s catastrophe is next to the greatest this section of the anthracite coal field has seen. Today’s accident is a direct result of violation of the law. Permission was given to the men to ride this trip to their place of work and a special train was provided for that purpose. On these cars special seats are built and the train was in daily use.

The mine was located between the Wilkes Barre Twp.(Georgetown Section) and Wilkes Barre border lines. The exact location was behind the now Home Depot,off of RT.309/Spring/Kidder Streets. The old "culm" banks of the mine are still there. When driving up Munday St. toward the mall, the banks are on the right. Most of these banks of mine-rock are gone from the local area.

CARPARPATHO-RUSYN NEWSPAPER

ENORMOUS CATASTROPHE IN COAL MINEWilkes Barre, Pa, June 8, 1919 - So far about 90 miners have perished on account of an enormous catastrophe in the number 2 Baltimore tunnel of the Delaware and Hudson Coal Mine.

While it was being transported into the tunnel, gunpowder ignited and it was the resulting dreadful explosion that took so many victims.

Mine Disaster Deceased Listing:

http://www.pagenweb.org/~luzerne/mines/mining.htmA Michael CUTLARSKI is listed as being one of the deceased miners of 1919. His name is actually spelled Kotlarski, and he was my great grandfather's brother in law (Michael Kotlarski came from Poland with Michael and married his sister Maria/Mary).